Between Transcendence and Historicism: The Ethical Nature of the Arts in Hegelian Aesthetics

Preface

Preface  T his book is written out of the conviction that, after a century of modernist avant-garde artistic movements, the nature of the arts needs to be rethought. It is intended for those who are open to the possibility that the arts pose a problem within modern society; that criticism of the arts is a legitimate option; and that what philosophers and theorists of the past have said about art is potentially worthwhile. It argues, specifically, that what Hegel had to say about the arts is important for a perspective that is related to the characteristic attitudes of modernity, yet is able to ground criticisms of the arts both in his day and in our own time. It also argues that Hegel is important in the way he interprets artistic traditions as he knew them, transforming long-standing artistic theories into a genuine, philosophical understanding of the arts. While his aesthetic is not without problems of its own, these prove instructive for considering the problems posed by the arts in the modern world. The argument in these pages, therefore, is not aimed at an exclusively Hegelian audience. Although it will be of interest to scholars of Hegel, the hope is that what it has to say will also be of interest to readers concerned with broader aesthetic questions. Whether I succeed in addressing what is of fashionable concern at the moment, the issues of the ethical nature of the particular arts and the role of tradition are serious and will not disappear. The tendency among philosophers to celebrate modernism and now postmodernism has worked to foreclose debate about fundamental aesthetic issues. I argue here that there are good reasons to see Hegel as pointing the way to a valid critique of these movements that are largely uncriticized in the academic community. vii This book was undertaken out of a long effort to understand Hegel’s aesthetic within the context of his larger philosophical system , and out of a sense of the need to rearticulate an aesthetic that would explain the legitimacy of the inherited artistic traditions of Western culture. Hence I have explored some of the topics in this book already in articles and essays. Permission to use them has been graciously granted in the following cases: “The Sounds of the Ideal: Hegel’s Aesthetic of Music,” The Owl of Minerva 26 (1994): 47–58, appearing in chapter 5; “Beauty, Ornament, and Style: The Problem of Classical Architecture in Hegel’s Aesthetics,” The Owl of Minerva 30 (1999): 211–35, appearing in chapter 7; and “Hegel’s Aesthetic and the Possibility of Art Criticism,” a paper read at the 1996 meeting of the Hegel Society of America, published in Hegel and Aesthetics, ed. William Maker (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 31–43, part of which appears here in chapter 3. Quotations from Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, by G. W. F. Hegel and translated by T. M. Knox are reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press © 1975 Oxford University Press. I gratefully acknowledge this permission as crucial to the analysis and critique of Hegel’s aesthetics. All quotations from the Aesthetics are from Knox’s translation unless otherwise noted. I would like to thank Professor William Desmond, editor of the SUNY series in Hegelian Studies, for his encouragement to pursue this project. I also thank Kettering University for its generous support of a sabbatical to make this book possible. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Linda, for reading the manuscript with an eye both for typographical errors and for nonsense masquerading as philosophy. viii Preface ...